JANESVILLE, Wisconsin — Friends describe Maurice “Monty” Montgomery as a walking encyclopedia of community history, a sharer of knowledge and a gentleman.
Montgomery died Saturday at age 80, leaving behind a community that relied on him for tidbits of Janesville and Rock County history as the former archivist and curator for the Rock County Historical Society.
Peter Skelly will remember Montgomery as being the definition of a gentleman.
“It’s a cliche, but if you look up the word gentleman in the dictionary, there’s Monty’s picture,” Skelly said.
Skelly’s friendship with Montgomery began about 25 years ago when Skelly was hunting for information about a topic Skelly has long since forgotten.
Over the years, Skelly and Montgomery bonded over their love of history and delving into President Abraham Lincoln’s path through Wisconsin. The two were appointed in 2009 by Gov. Jim Doyle to serve on the Wisconsin Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.
Skelly also helped Montgomery with his book “Memory Walks in Oak Hill Cemetery” published in 2008. It was just one of several books Montgomery penned.
“We were kindred spirits about local history,” Skelly said.
Montgomery, whom some considered Janesville’s official historian, worked at the historical society from 1979 until retiring in 1999. While there, he developed the archive system the historical society uses to this day, said Laurel Fant, historical society curator who worked with Montgomery for seven years.
Skelly remembers picking up Montgomery and taking him for drives around Janesville about five years ago.
Skelly would place a recorder next to Montgomery and just let the historian talk. It was during those drives Skelly learned about “all these little chains and threads of Janesville history that we might not ever be able to knit together again in one human being,” he said.
“I will treasure that. You’re never going to lose that, but it’s sad we lost him, but I’ll always have the memories and the knowledge he imparted to me and shared with me in that way.”
Fant likes to joke Montgomery was preparing Skelly to fill his shoes.
Montgomery was not just a teacher of history but also a student of it. He loved helping people with their research and at times felt as if he was “actually walking beside that person” he was researching. “It brings you up with a shock, coming back into the real world,” he is quoted saying in a past Gazette article.
Montgomery graduated from the former Janesville Junior-Senior High School in 1953 and in 1958 from William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri.
He earned a master’s degree in religion and art in 1960 from University of Chicago Divinity School before continuing his graduate studies later, according to his obituary and Gazette archives.
In all, Montgomery had degrees in philosophy, Latin, English, religion and art.
Before joining the Rock County Historical Society in 1979, Montgomery taught history at schools in Wisconsin and Maine and sold men’s clothing.
He moved back to Janesville to help his parents care for his sister Cheryl, who was disabled, and retired in 1999 to care for his aging parents, Melton and Rose, according to archives.
People The Gazette spoke to Monday did not know what sparked Montgomery’s love for history.
Montgomery told Skelly about how as a child he and his family would drive by the Lincoln-Tallman House. Montgomery later used those memories in refurbishing the historical marker.
A person’s love for history is often innate and fostered at a young age, Skelly said.
Richard Snyder, Friends of Oak Hill Chapel co-president, interviewed Montgomery in 2013 about the Oak Hill Cemetery chapel. Montgomery’s “thorough” knowledge was used in restoring the chapel’s stained glass windows, Snyder said.
Snyder believes it was Montgomery’s passion for people and their stories that drove his love for history and desire to follow people’s lives from start to finish.
Montgomery was a longtime attendee of First Congregational United Church of Christ, Janesville, Alan Dunwiddie of Janesville said.
Dunwiddie, 92, has attended the church for as long as he has been alive, and remembers always seeing Montgomery sitting at the end of a pew on the north side of the church until a few years ago.
“Maurice was quite a guy,” Dunwiddie said, describing Montgomery as a quiet, unassuming fellow.
The majority of Dunwiddie’s interaction with Montgomery happened while Dunwiddie was on the Rock County Historical Society Board and Montgomery was a volunteer turned curator with the historical society, Dunwiddie said.
“His knowledge of Janesville history and his interest in Rock County history was just an invaluable help to the Rock County Historical Society,” Dunwiddie said. “You could name a subject in Rock County, and he’d know something about it.”
Fant will remember Montgomery as “Mr. Janesville,” a man who was a one-stop shop for information about anything local.
“Hopefully, the information is somewhere in the archives or in people’s memories, but it’s not going to be all condensed in one location for us–in Monty’s big brain,” Fant said.
Services for Montgomery will be at 2 p.m. Wednesday at the Schneider Funeral Home & Crematory, Janesville. Visitation will be from 1 p.m. until time of services at the funeral home.
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